Best Fly Fishing Vests

A vest's argument is weight distribution and heat. Spread a day's tackle across twelve pockets on a mesh body and it stops registering as weight; put the same tackle in a sling and it sits on one shoulder, over a back that is already under a pack panel.

Simms builds the Tributary with a polyester mesh body and nylon ripstop where the abrasion happens — the pockets and the back panel. It comes in at 300 grams. The pocket layout is the part worth reading twice: four flapped lower pockets with pull tabs, four YKK-zippered pockets sized to take small, medium and large fly boxes, two zippered chest pockets, two low-profile magnetic slide pockets, Velcro fly patches, a large rear compartment and six internal pockets.

The magnetic chest pockets matter more than the count. With a fish held in the water in one hand, a magnetic closure opens with a thumb; a zip needs two hands and more time than the fish has to spare.

Vests went out of fashion and the reasons they existed did not. Spread across eight pockets, a day's tackle is barely noticeable; the same weight in a sling is on one shoulder. And on a 90-degree day, a mesh vest over waders is dramatically cooler than any pack that covers your back.

The Clearwater uses mesh with 100% recycled ripstop polyester where durability is needed, with eight pockets — four zip, four Velcro — and two chest fly-drying patches with rubberized tabs for docking tools. Those patches do something useful: a fly you have just fished is wet, and a wet fly put straight back in a box rusts and flattens.

What a vest cannot do is carry volume. No jacket, no lunch, no camera. If you need those, the decision is a sling or a pack — our sling versus chest versus hip pack comparison walks through the trade.

Fishpond's answer to the vest question is to carry less, more comfortably, rather than to add pockets. The Flint Hills is 1.1 pounds of 210D recycled Cyclepond nylon with six zippered front pockets, four stretch mesh pockets and a large back panel for a shell or lunch.

The detail worth paying for is the D-ring. Clip a magnetic net release to it and your net lives between your shoulder blades until the moment you need it — which is the difference between landing a fish cleanly and realizing your net is in the hand you needed.

It is, honestly, a second vest rather than a first one. The construction and the fabric are a step up from a starter mesh vest, and a beginner would not notice most of what that buys.